That’s the top-level finding of a new report on the declining number of Coloradans completing traditional teacher preparation programs at the state’s colleges and universities.

For the sixth year in a row, fewer students are graduating with an education degree and heading into the classroom, according to a report issued jointly by the state departments of education and higher education.

Just 2,472 students graduated this spring with a degree in education. That’s down slightly from 2,529 the previous year. And unlike in years before where there were slight upticks in the number of students completing nontraditional teacher prep programs, that number was flat this year.

The decline in the number of Colorado college students leaving with a teaching certificate is not unique to Colorado. Across the nation, schools are grappling with teacher shortages, especially at the middle and high school level and with subjects such as math and science.

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Rural schools here and across the nation are at an even greater disadvantage, according to multiple reports.

There is one glimmer of hope in the report for those advocating for greater diversity in front of the classroom. The makeup of individuals enrolled last year in traditional teacher prep programs was the most diverse since 2011. In total, 2,088 students of color were enrolled at a traditional teacher prep program last year. That’s about 21 percent of all students in such programs.

In an effort to increase the number of available teachers, colleges and school districts alike are creating new programs to attract incoming freshman and non-traditional candidates.

Beginning in 2017, freshmen entering the University of Colorado Boulder will have two new degree options — a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a bachelor’s degree in leadership and community engagement. The latter was designed to attract students who believe teaching can make an impact in and out of the classroom, officials said.

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The University of Northern Colorado, which continues to graduate the largest number of students with teaching degrees, is developing a new program to recruit and train students and current educators to teach in the state’s rural schools.

Denver Public Schools is also expanding a program that takes current teacher aides and puts them in front of the classroom after they’ve completed courses from Western Governors University, a nonprofit online university.

Fewer new teachers is just one of two major factors contributing to the teacher shortage. The other is the number of current teachers retiring or leaving the field. Some of the state’s most high-profile superintendents recently discussed that matter at an annual forum.

They said the public, lawmakers and their peers must restore respect to the profession, among other strategies, to keep current teachers in the field.

More than half of its school districts signed on last year when Tennessee created a network of literacy coaches to help classroom teachers improve their students’ reading.

Now entering the program’s second year, another 16 districts are joining up. That means two-thirds of Tennessee districts will have instructional supports in place aimed at addressing the state’s lackluster reading levels.

Tennessee has a reading problem. Less than half of its students in grades 3-8 were considered proficient in 2015, the last year for which test scores are available. In Memphis, the numbers are even more stunning. Less than a third of Shelby County Schools’ third-graders are reading on grade level.

PHOTO: Marta W. Aldrich

Gov. Bill Haslam speaks during the statewide launch of Read to be Ready in 2016.

The state wants to get 75 percent of third-graders proficient by 2025. (New scores coming out this fall will help track progress.)

The coaching network is a major component of Tennessee’s Read to be Ready drive, launched in 2016 by Gov. Bill Haslam and Education Commissioner Candice McQueen. The focus is helping teachers improve literacy instruction for the state’s youngest students.

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So far, some 200 coaches have worked directly with more than 3,000 teachers in 83 districts, including all four urban districts. This fall, 99 out of the state’s 146 school systems will participate.

About 92 percent of classroom teachers report that coaching is improving their teaching, even as many coaches say they are stretched too thin, according to a state report released Wednesday. Inadequate planning time for teachers is another barrier to success, the report notes.

To join the coaching network, districts must commit to funding a reading coach who will support about 15 teachers. New districts signing up this year are:

With new contract, first-year teachers in Detroit could soon make more than peers in Grosse Pointe and other suburbs

First-year teachers in Detroit could soon earn more than their peers in neighboring districts. The gray bar in this chart shows where starting salaries were in Detroit last year. The green one shows how the contract could change that.

For years, Detroit’s main school district has paid some of the lowest starting teacher salaries in the region but Superintendent Nikolai Vitti says that’s about to change.

The teachers contract approved by the Detroit school board Tuesday night doesn’t include enough of a pay increase to bring city teachers back to where they were in 2011 when a state-appointed emergency manager ordered a 10 percent pay cut.

But data compiled by the Detroit district show that the new agreement, which will boost teacher wages by more than 7 percent, would pay enough that starting teachers could soon earn more than their peers in Dearborn, Grosse Pointe and other nearby districts.

“It doesn’t begin to address the injustice [of pay cuts and frozen wages] but this is a first step,” Vitti told the board as it met at Osborn High School Tuesday.

The new contract was approved last month by members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers union. Now that the school board has signed off, the contract will go to a state financial review board for final approval.

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Vitti, who hopes the higher salaries will make it easier for the district to fill more than 400 vacant teaching positions, showed the board a series of charts and graphs that illustrated some effects of the new contract.

Among the charts he flashed on a screen was one that compared starting teacher salaries in Detroit to other districts, before and after the new contract. Another slide showed how salaries would change for teachers at every level of the pay scale. A third warned that the city’s main district could be careening toward a “cliff” if it doesn’t recruit enough young teachers to replace the district’s predominantly senior educators as they begin to retire.

See the charts — and additional details about the contract — below. The last page spells out other steps Vitti says he plans to take to address the teacher shortage.